'Women's silence does not mean weakness' - Maaza Mengiste on Booker Prize shortlisting - BBC Africa

News that Ethiopian-American Maaza Mengiste, author of The Shadow King, was on the shortlist for The Booker Prize was received with celebration on the African literary scene.

With Ethiopia on the brink of another conflict - as clashes intensify in the country's Tigray region - the historical war at the heart of the novel offers a commentary on current events in ways the author could not have foreseen.

The Shadow King is about an orphan girl named Hirut living in Ethiopia in 1935 amid the threat of invasion by Mussolini.

The Booker Prize is the UK's most prestigious literary award open to any novel written in English and published in the UK and Ireland.

Maaza Mengiste spoke to BBC's Princess Abumere about getting shortlisted and about the context which inspired her book.

Interview filmed in September 2020.

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Видео 'Women's silence does not mean weakness' - Maaza Mengiste on Booker Prize shortlisting - BBC Africa канала BBC News Africa